US Trade Rep: Blame Canada For Piracy!

from the oh-come-on dept

It's still entirely unclear why the entertainment industry so dislikes Canada. There's almost no evidence that "piracy" in Canada is any bigger than anywhere else, but for some reason, every year, the industry goes on a big campaign to get Canada listed alongside countries like China and Russia as places where unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted works thrives. This year, finally, the industry succeeded, and the US Trade Rep has added Canada to its "Priority Watch List" as opposed to just the "Watch List," where it has been the past few years. Michael Geist covers just why this is absolutely ridiculous. Canada already has quite stringent copyright laws, and it has even passed stricter copyright laws over the past few years at the urging of the entertainment industry. It's difficult to see this new announcement as anything other than a condemnation of the US Trade Rep's process for putting together such a list.